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Eba wiped her brow with the back of her wrist as she prayed she hadn’t lost count of how many times she’d stirred her boar’s tusk spoon in the small crock over the fire. It was days like today that made her curse her younger self’s pride.
At seven, the Masters of the Open Palm had taken her in to teach her the art of killing. At thirteen, she’d had an offer of official apprenticeship with the Swordskeepers; at fourteen, the Poison Wraiths asked her to audition. She hadn’t shown. Master Ikel had her scrubbing the floors, walls, and ceilings of every dojo in the city for a month after that.
At the time, she hadn’t minded. At the time, it seemed like nothing for what she was certain she’d get in exchange.
The day before her eighteenth birthday, Master Fynn, Master Aerin, and Master Ikel all brought a dawn-hour breakfast of scones and sweetmeats to share with her and the junior pupils Eba lived with and mentored. They’d eaten quietly, all pretending not to know why they were there; the youngest of the juniors giggling behind their hands with wide eyes; the eldest making a show of eating slowly to avoid being dismissed for their chores.
The three Sorceresses arrived quietly and bid her to follow them quietly. She’d hugged Aerin and Fynn and had almost cried as Ikel held her at arm's length with a steady, proud gleam in his eye, before he bowed low to her, to show her the respect her new station deserved.
It had never been guaranteed. No one but those cloistered within the order knew how the Sorceresses selected their candidates for the most elite assassins' guild in the Queen’s realm. But she’d known, since before Master Ikel petitioned the Open Palm on her behalf when she was only seven years old, that they would select her.
She’d always wondered if her certainty was part of why they waited until half-past ten to show up, though.
The longer she studied with her order, the more it seemed like the type of thing High Sorceress Elana would do for a laugh.
Late as they’d been, she’d still been overwhelmed with gratitude and ecstatic beyond compare and all of the lovely things you’re supposed to feel when your dreams come true. But now, three years into her apprenticeship: days like today had her biting her tongue from snapping at Sorceress Mystrin that if she'd wanted cooking lessons, she would have just gone with the Poison Wraiths and saved herself a fuck-ton of trouble.
“Stop!” Mystrin shouted from where she was watching in the corner of the yurt. Eba froze instantly, carefully keeping the spoon in the crock, just in case there was something about “disturbing” the slimy turquoise goop before the next step. “How many turns?”
“Ninety-eight.”
“And how many have you done?”
Eba bit the inside of her cheek. She was on ninety-five; she was certain. Or she’d possibly lost count back in the forties, and she was on ninety-two. She glanced up at Mystrin, squinting her eyes against the column of smoke curling up through the gap at the yurt’s peak.
Eba slowly stirred her spoon once more. Then, when Mystrin didn’t flinch, she spun it twice more in quick succession and pulled her spoon out of the crock.
She was almost surprised when the goop slid off the spoon slick as oil and simmered into a rich, glittery midnight blue Mystrin had described it should be.
“Don’t doubt yourself so much, Eba.” Mystrin gave her an exaggerated grin and Eba rolled her eyes at her mentor.
Mystrin poured the mixture into a glass decanter and handed her a fresh pot to start their dinner without another word about the potion until they were down to the dregs of their stew and the last crusts of their bread.
“Have you figured out what it does yet?” Mystrin asked her.
Eba sighed. She hadn’t been looking forward to this part. Mystrin tipped the decanter on its edge and the elixir swirled like so many stars tumbling through the galaxy. “You’re going to make me drink it. So, another physical ailment—a distraction, not a death knell.”
“Good.” Mystrin rolled it around its bottom edge so that the open spout was facing her. “Could you identify it by smell?”
Eba sniffed.
“The honeysuckle is too faint; it’d be easy for a Wraith to disguise.” Mystrin smirked. She was one of the few who had been recruited to another assassin’s guild before the Sorceresses made her an offer. She always appreciated a jab at the expense of her old order.
“So what would you do with it, Sorceress Eba?”
“How much would I need?” She doubted it was the full vat, but her answer did depend on it.
Nodding her approval at a well-asked question, Mystrin took Eba’s spoon and carefully measured out four drops of the mixture.
“Perfume, then. On my neck or wrists. With some sort of sealant between my skin and the elixir?”
“Perhaps. Shall we see what sort of sealant you’d trust?”
Eba sighed. She understood the theory—she had to understand the effects of different spells and potions if she was going to use them properly—but the ones deemed “probably not lethal” enough for her to ingest herself were never…pleasant.
Mystrin ran her index finger through the droplets on the spoon and rubbed her fingers together, taking her time sniffing it herself. She waved for Eba to stand up and stand before her. Mystrin’s eyes looked serious as she raised her fingertips to Eba’s pulse underneath her jaw and spread what was left of the concoction down the length of her neck.
“Will I know when it’s working?” Eba asked, hoping her nerves didn’t show through in her voice.
“Oh, you’ll know,” Mystrin reassured her with a smile.
Eba arched off the tabletop with an anguished cry. Her skirts were discarded on the floor; her bodice and underthings had gone missing what felt like hours ago. Her naked legs were hiked up and crossed behind Mystrin’s shoulders as her mentor reached around her thighs, nimble fingers pinching and fondling her bare breasts as her sly tongue licked over her clit over and over and over again.
She’d lost count of how many times she’d come. The first had been in Mystrin’s lap, grinding against her thigh. The second had been as Mystrin pushed her up against the doorpost while her fingers coaxed her into screaming her teacher’s name. She’d made Mystrin come once, as Mystrin instructed her how to touch her to make her cry out in ecstasy, and once Mystrin had told Eba how to touch herself, watching with rapt attention and swollen, parted lips.
There was more than that, or maybe there were just dreams and fantasy as the world came in and out of focus.
Her body felt overwrought, overstimulated, over-everything. She couldn’t see straight; she couldn’t do more than moan and whine for release from the fire that burned in her belly and threatened to consume her if Mystrin waited too long to let her come again.
Mystrin scraped the edge of her teeth over her clit and then flicked her tongue back in the other direction. Eba sobbed as her tongue dipped inside her and stroked her from one side to the other. She was sure she couldn’t come again; she was sure she’d die if she didn’t. She couldn’t say what she needed or wanted just that she knew Mystrin was going to give it to her.
“That’s it, baby,” Mystrin slurred her words through the haze. Mystrin kissed her thigh; kissed the curve of her ass; kissed her wide open pussy; kissed her clit before sucking down hard again. Eba rolled her hips into it as she gasped for breath. She could feel her blood burning through her thighs, the pleasure coiling, ready to spring on her like a cobra.
Mystrin moved suddenly, pushed her legs off her shoulders and Eba planted her feet flat on the table. Mystrin leaned in close, slapping one palm against the wood to the side of her face. Her other hand skimmed down Eba’s stomach, over the crease of her thigh before two fingers slid smoothly inside her and started pumping in and out in earnest.
“There we go.” Mystrin’s hot breath curled over Eba’s warm cheeks. “One more, baby. I think you’ve got one more in you.”
The words Eba needed to beg Mystrin for more got caught in her throat as Mystrin kissed her hard. Mystrin’s tongue fucked her mouth hard as she’d fucked her cunt and the taste of herself on Mystrin’s lips had her grabbing Mystrin’s hair out of a desperation for more. Eba held her close, demanded as much as Mystrin would give her, and only broke away from the kiss to moan aloud as Mystrin’s fingers twisted just right inside of her.
Eba’s breath caught in her throat as Mystrin leaned down to slide her lips over her bare breasts.
“C’mon, baby. C’mon,” Mystrin whispered over her skin between biting kisses.
Mystrin bit down on one of her nipples and turned her hand to press her thumb against her clit with one last thrust inside of her. Eba’s world shattered into a thousand tiny pinpricks of starlight as another orgasm ripped through her.
By the time the potion worked its way through their systems, both women had pulled their bedrolls right beside each other and collapsed into a heap of blankets and pillows. Mystrin made Eba drink half a water skein before taking any for herself; Eba made Mystrin loop her arms around her shoulders to cuddle while handing her mentor bits of cheese.
It was quiet; no sounds except for a few cicadas chirping in the night outside their yurt. It always felt nice to be comforted after such a physically demanding lesson, but this lesson, in particular, had been dramatically different.
Mystrin kept stroking her hand over Eba’s bare shoulder, sending cascades of pleasant goosebumps down her arm. Periodically, Mystrin would dip her head and brush a quick kiss across her forehead, or press her nose to her hair to take a deep breath, as if Mystrin was as comforted by Eba’s solid presence as she was her teacher’s.
“Do all students go through this with their mentors?” The question practically burned her tongue as Eba asked it, but she fought to keep her voice steady.
“Could you picture Sorceress Sarai mixing that for Sorceress Enes?” Mystrin asked back in a quiet voice.
Eba huffed a laugh. Enes was a stubborn, frail slip of a woman, who had allegedly been “about to retire” for almost ten years. Sarai was a quiet, mild-mannered woman who had joined the Sorceresses’ order just a few months after Eba. While Sarai was the top of their cohort in all metaphysical magic, her potion mixing often went horribly, catastrophically wrong.
It was the same sort of non-answer Mystrin usually gave to those sorts of questions. Still, Eba felt warmth ooze like honey from the top of her head down to her toes. Turning slightly, Eba brushed a soft kiss along Mystrin’s collarbone, and Mystrin hummed contentedly in response.
“Get some sleep, baby,” Mystrin said with another kiss on her forehead. “We can talk more about that perfume you’re going to make for our next commission in the morning.”